What I Know Now-Joel Glenn Wixson-Vaughan Mall-Portsmouth NH

A Final Note

Although my culture teaches me that cycles have beginnings and ends, my culture's science is being confronted with what it describes as proof of a different kind of reality. In this reality, everything is connected and change is the only constant. As theoretical physics and cosmology push further into smaller and larger realms respectively, notions of finite systems and closed loops start to disappear as viable models to describe our world. We are left with the ideas of constant change and fundamental interconnectedness.

As I ponder these ideas, I am left to consider my own flow. There are times when an eddy in a stream can seem like the stream itself. Side currents create motion that seems like the actual river, but are not. In order to insure that I am not stuck in an eddy, I remain on the lookout for obstacles and challenges that exist only in the main current. When I don't see them, I know I have to push off from where I am in search of the risks and gifts only the real River can provide.

The practice of writing these daily reflections has become an eddy for me, so I have chosen today, the end of the third year of writing, to push off from this comfortable bank, and back into the main stream. I know that I can't find what is waiting there for me till I do, for that is what faith is about. Thanks to everyone who has followed along. I have appreciated your comments, input, and attention. I wish you all the best in your many adventures. I look forward to seeing you all along the way.

Breeze

As I sit outside today, the freshening Wind rises in the West. It gets me thinking about how the Wind never really stops blowing. It changes, but the air is always moving, even if it is just the air I am exhaling. The breeze does not start and stop, it does not begin or end. Sometimes it is just so gentle that I don't notice it. Today, I will be paying attention to time when I think something is ending, when, in fact, it is just changing.

Cycles

My culture describes cycles as having beginnings, middles, and ends. It further prioritizes middles. I am invited to avoid beginnings because they are sometimes equated with stress. I am invited to avoid endings because they are sometimes described only as loss. Without endings there can be no new beginnings, and my experience has taught me that the possible stress and loss can be made meaningful through how I choose to take up these new possibilities. Today, I will be paying attention to the invitations I receive form my culture, and noticing when they do and don't resonate with my experience.

Alarm Call

I was so happy to hear Robin this morning, that it took me a while to realize that I was listening to her alarm call. Once I did, I scanned around to try to see what she was worried about. When I didn't see anything obvious, I concluded that it might be me. Today, I am grateful to be familiar with Robin and her alarm call.

Hawk Perspective

Cooper's Hawk and family call out over and over in the afternoons around the cabin. I can hear them talking to each other seemingly miles apart. Their calls take me to a wonderful time. I am reminded of last Summer, when they were so close and we could watch them flying off and returning. We could see them dive bombing each other, and see the you ng ones learning how to fly.

This is only one perspective on the Hawk calls. I have learned that some of our neighbors don't like the calls at all. For them, they are loud and annoying. And then there is the perspective of Hawk. That is at least three perspectives on one experience.

This gets me thinking about the abundance of possible perspectives that exist in response to any event. Each is important and valuable. Together they represent part of the tapestry that is Life. Today, I will be doing my best to honor all of the perspectives that show up along my path.

Difference

As I sat this morning I noticed a bright red leaf directly in front of me on Maple tree. It was so bright that I wondered for a moment if it was Scarlet Tanager. How beautiful it was against the green leaves on the rest of the tree. It got me thinking about the importance of difference. A red leaf stands out in late August, but not so much in the middle of October. So difference isn't just about what or where but also about when. Today, I will be noticing how when something is makes it stand out.

Pear

We have Pears that are starting to go. The darkness is starting around the stems. It occurs to me that the stem is where the Pear starts. From flower to fruit, the process begins at the stem. So it makes sense that from fruit to soil, the process continues from the stem. This gets me thinking that the progress of other things maybe isn't so mysterious. It seems that maybe it's more about paying attention to how things go. Maybe it's more about noticing. Maybe if I spend more time paying attention, some outcomes wouldn't seem so surprising.

Morning

During the warmer months, when there is no fire to tend, I can sit on the Western porch to eat my breakfast. This cool morning reminds me that the Autumn is coming, and I am grateful fro the time I have outside enjoying the morning.

Blueberry

The Blueberry bushes in front of the cabin are not mature enough to produce lots of berries. The ones they do produce ripen slowly, a few at a time. It occurred to me this morning that, although they don't ripen all at the same time, it is possible to understand why they ripen when they do. The fact that there are one or two berries on each bush every time I go out to look is not random. It probably has something to do with things like the amount it rains, how much sun they get, and where they are on the bush.

I don't know exactly, but I realized this morning that I could know. All I would have to do is take the time to hang out with the berry bushes and watch what happens and when. Keeping in mind that what the bushes did this year is slightly different from what they did last year and what they will do next year, the process of really understanding how the berries ripen would require a commitment of time. The gifts would be substantial, however. I

realize that this would be a reclamation of knowledge. I know my ancestors had this knowledge. It was handed down to them from their Elders and they passed it along. I believe that there are probably people still living who possess this knowledge, but I am no longer in the line through which it is passed.

This gets me thinking about the knowledge my culture invites me to carry and pass on. Knowledge about money and career, possessions and status. I'm not sure how this will serve me when no one remembers how the berries grow.

Gifts

As the Sun rose this morning, it shone through, under the cloud cover. The shafts of light created a bright glow that set off the steel gray clouds above. The effect lasted only for a minute before the Sun rose above the clouds. This got me thinking about the gifts that exist in every moment. The Sun brings gifts, the clouds bring gifts. I just have to be present to receive them.

Calm Action

I sit and listen to the sounds of the woods in the early morning, I hear the breeze. I hear the birds. I hear the insects. Though I know that there is much going on that I can not hear, what I hear sounds to me like calm. Then it occurs to me that there is calm in the woods, even with the things that are going on that I can not hear. I start to understand that there does not have to be inactivity in order for there to be calm. There is quiet in noise, the space between the sound waves. There is light in darkness. There is calm in action.

Beetle Squeak

There is a beetle in the trees to the North of the cabin. I know because of the sound he makes. He sounds like the squeak trees make when their limbs rub against each other. If I didn't know it was Beetle, I would think it was Tree. I only know about Beetle because I heard this sound on a windless afternoon, and wondered how Tree could be squeaking when she was not moving. I asked a friend who knows about such things, and he told me about Beetle. I am struck by the importance of noticing. If I hadn't noticed the sound of Beetle and wondered where the sound was coming from, I would never have known about him. Now I can hear him squeaking even if there is a breeze. This leaves me wondering excitedly about all I have yet to notice.

Worry Invitations

As I sit and listen this morning, I hear a Beetle chirping in a tree Northwest of the cabin. As I do, Cat Bird, and a pair of Cardinals join me. I notice their actions and see no ambivalence. They act. They fly, they hunt, the kill, they sing. They don't hesitate. They don't balk. I am struck by this, and it gets me thinking about the power of actions. I can accept. I can forgive. I can be grateful. I can serve. I can ponder. These are actions. These are things I can do. Today I will be paying attention to the actions I take and noticing when doubt and worry invite me to hesitate.

Humming Bird

Absent but implicit in the flower of Bee Balm is Humming Bird. Humming Bird is the only bird that can reach the nectar at the base of the long conical petals. Humming Bird's long beak and tongue reach into places no other bird can reach. The flower implies the bird.

Safe

Sitting on the plane home from a recent trip, the guy next to me asked, “You wanna see something fun?” He immediately began pushing virtual buttons on his mini computer. It took a while for him to find the file, but when he did, an image appeared. On the screen was a person and a paddle board. About twenty feet behind the board was a dark shadow.

It turned out that there was more than one photo. In fact there was a whole sequence. In each one, the dark shadow got closer and closer to his board. “I'm the Clueless Paddle Board Guy,” he said, as he described what happened to produce these photographs. He told me he was out on his board near a beach off the coast of Massachusetts when a drone showed up over his head. He said he thought it was out there looking for sharks since a seal had been taken there the day before. Thinking no more of it, he returned to the beach. When he did, he was greeted by the drone driver. It was then that he learned why the drone had been so interested in him. He stood on the beach stunned as the drone pilot showed him pictures of himself trailed by a dark shadow identified by the drone flier as a twelve foot Great White Shark. He told me the drone operator had shared the photos and that they had gone viral. That's when he was dubbed “The Clueless Paddle Boarder.”

We talked for a while about his fifteen minutes of fame as he recounted the titles of the magazines he had appeared in. I think it was People Magazine that had introduced the idea that he was “clueless.” He told me he didn't like being thought of that way, and we laughed about creating memes with his photos, but as we did, I kept coming back to one thing; he was alive.

One of the scariest parts in the sequence of photos is the one that shows that, after Shark passes him, it turns back, perhaps for another look. We talked about how surf boards can look like Seals from under water and how so many people have theorized that this is one of the reason why surfers get attacked. This lead him to tell me about the kind of board he uses. It's shorter than most paddle boards and not as buoyant. That means he has to be even more present as he is paddling. Otherwise, he will lose his balance and fall. As he spoke about the focus and attention required for him to do what he was doing, I started to struggle with the idea that he was clueless. In fact it seemed that his was just the opposite of clueless, and quite clued into what he was doing.

He spoke about how much he loved paddle boarding, and how that morning was the perfect combination of wake and waves. He had been waiting for just such a day, and was so happy that it had finally arrived. He said he was aware that Sharks were in the area, but decided to go out anyway. That's when he spoke about how important he though it was to live your life like you're dying rather than always worrying about what might kill you. This reminded me of the time I asked by a friend of mine if I would be devastated if she died. I told her that of courses I would, but it would be easier for me if I knew she died doing something she loved; something that mattered to her. Paddle boarding and what he experienced when I did it mattered to him.

It turned out his name was Roger, and he told that, in retrospect he probably shouldn't have gone out. He knew what he was doing was risky, but I kept coming back to the fact that he was alive. It was when he stated to ponder out loud why the life guards hadn't raised the alarm when the drone flier saw what was going on that I said, “But you're an alive person.”

It was then that we started to wonder what would have happened to him if the folks on the beach had tried to warn him about the Shark. Remembering the scene from the movie Jaws when the Sharif panics, rushing everyone out of the water only to find that what he thought was a Shark was only two kids with a fake fin, I said sometimes raising the alarm is the last thing you want to do. He said he didn't know how he would have reacted. He said that he would like to believe that he would have stayed calm, but we both shuttered thinking about what might have happened if he hadn't. What if he lost his focus? What if his concentration was broken? The outcome might have been quite different from the one he was living. The only other option for him for that morning would have been for him to remain on the beach.

All this got me thinking about how often my culture invites me to do just that. Every day I am invited to keep my focus on all the things that could go wrong; All the risks I face as I live my life. Metaphorically, my culture invites me to pay far more attention to the possibility that there is a shark in the water then to consider what I might gain from taking my paddle board out anyway. The thing about Roger is that he was not absentmindedly blundering into the water. He knew what he was doing. He knew how to balance on his board. He knew how to find a wave and ride it back into the beach. Had he known there was Great White in that water at that time, he wouldn't have gone out, but he couldn't have known.

The question I am left with is this: Will I stop taking my metaphoric paddle board out into the water just because there might be Sharks or do I go out anyway? Unfortunately, by culture's proscription is to stay on the beach. Today, I chose to listen to my own words to my friend, paying attention not to the possible Sharks in the water, but the value of the experiences I have when I chose, like Roger the perhaps not-so-clueless-paddle-board-guy, to leave the beach. I can choose to spend my life worried about the unseen sharks that lurk just below the surface, or I can notice the beauty of the water that shimmers just beyond the safety of the shore.

There will always be risks and there wall always be choices to make. Perhaps the most important thing I learned from Roger's story came from the fact that, even while the drone pilot was watching the Shark circle around him, he was experiencing an amazing morning out on the sparkling water. Sometimes what we don't know is just is impotent as what we do. Perhaps being “clueless” about one thing is what keeps us open to and aware of something else. Roger is an alive person, and perhaps he is even more alive for having come so close to a Shark he didn't even know was there.

#paddleboarderandshark

Knowledge

I hear a bird call in the North woods, that I am very familiar with, but I don't know who makes it. I am struck by this familiarity without having a picture in my mind of the singer. I would probably recognize the bird even though I don't know the song. This seems to be an unspicific way of knowing, and I am left wondering about how many other such knowledges a carry, yet to be completed.